I've never set out to seduce my reader. I don't see him at all clearly.
I have 60 years of reading to draw upon: naval memoirs, dispatches, the Naval Chronicles, family letters.
In a day when, if you insulted a man it might cost you your life, you were probably more civil.
Likings arise when one has no earthly reason for liking - the most wildly improbable marriages and uncommon friendship.
Take a newspaper account of Waterloo or Trafalgar, with all the small advertisements: it seems much more real than reading about it in a history book.
On a ship, everything is enclosed: the people are right on top of each other and can't get up and walk away.
